


A Voice in the Wilderness

by HonestScribe



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dragons, Fantasy Christianity, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23703472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HonestScribe/pseuds/HonestScribe
Summary: Samara Florinian is an Imperial who belongs to the Yahim faith, one of many religions being hunted by the Thalmor, and flees to Skyrim hoping to hide in plain sight. They are so busy chasing worshipers of Talos that she will be the last thing on their minds. A cowardly move, she knows, but being the last surviving member of her family, she wants to survive to pass on their legacy. Unfortunately, Yah has other ideas. She must choose between perceived safety or embracing her destiny as Dovahkiin.Rated M for violence and thematic elements, including religious persecution. Whether it will actually reach its rating, I don't know, but I'm sticking with the source material's rating just to be safe.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3





	1. The Voice

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here's a little something different, a personal experiment, if you will. Thanks to a friend of mine, I've really gotten into the video game Skyrim, and since I've bought it on the PC I've had a lot of fun playing with different mods. Recently I've discovered some Bible mods, most of which basically just place the Bible as we know it in random locations like an Easter egg hunt. While the idea is cute, it really made me think about what Judeo-Christian beliefs might actually look like in the world of the Elder Scrolls, and playing out my beliefs through a video game character has both been thought-provoking and a lot of fun. So, here's my alternate universe interpretation of what Christianity might look like in Tamriel. Obviously, I'm having to readjust elements of both sources to make them fit together, but hopefully while still maintaining the overall integrity of both. In short, your mileage may vary. If this kind of reinterpretation isn't your cup of tea, that's fine. There are plenty of excellent Skyrim writers out there. This is merely my humble contribution to two of my favorite stories.
> 
> The updates for this one will probably be a bit slower than the updates for Euclid Skies. I feel a bit like I'm putting together a Dwemer jigsaw puzzle with this one!
> 
> The opening scripture is adapted from Psalm 148, Old King James translation (hard to understand at times, but the most evocative of the setting).

_ Praise Yah from Nirn, ye dragons and all deeps _

_ Fire and hail: snow and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling his word: _

_ Mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars: _

_ Beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying fowl: _

_ Kings of Nirn and all peoples; princes and all the judges of Nirn: _

_ Both young men and maidens; old men and children: _

_ Let them praise the name of Yah; for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the stars. _

-The Book of Yah, Songs of the Kings

To most mortals viewing them, the stars looked like tears in velvet, letting light stream in from the magic realm of absent gods. That the stars were thinking beings was incomprehensible, and that their God was still present was even more so. They spun in their slow orbits, singing a song which only their creator could understand, a song which fell silent on the deafened worlds in their care. Whenever a distant star introduced a new melody, astrologically-minded mages took note of its brightening, hoping it to be a sign. When the song was especially strong, waves of color streaked through Nirn’s northern skies, attributed to an influx of magic or an illusion of the mind. Otherwise mortals had no evidence of their rich inner workings. Only the dragons had any inkling, but the stars had long ceased speaking to them.

Alduin, the black dragon who mortals called the “World Eater,” knew well that change was in the air. Upon his return, the most distant stars began flaring in earnest, farther than elf or human eyes could see, and the aurora’s colors shifted in patterns he had seen before. He knew precisely what it meant; a Thu’um was spreading through the heavens, from outside space and time, its result already decreed. At one time, such signs had filled him with hope. Now, he hoped for nothing, save to slake his hunger.

The Thu’um struck the upper atmosphere like a crack of thunder and swept through the valley as a gust of wind. The mountains echoed the word, and the grasses and trees whispered in answer. From deep in the valley, a herd of mammoths trumpeted, and the birds fell completely still. The whole countryside listened to the word, absorbing its meaning, save the two-legged races who were too deaf to hear.

The Thu’um reached Alduin’s mountain last, sweeping over it like a warm gust of spring wind. A new dragon had just been named, announced in the manner all dragons used to be. This dragon’s name was dangerous, a direct threat against his rightful dominion. Alduin stretched his blackened wings and roared a challenge in answer.


	2. The Refugee

The Jerall Mountains were anything but forgiving. Rarely did a day go by without a raging snowstorm, and a single misstep in such conditions could send a traveler hurtling to her doom. Innumerable skeletons littered the rock face, mouths opened wide as if laughing at their own mortality. What else could one do in the face of death?

Samara asked herself this question as she inched up the mountain path, pulling the ice wolf cloak tighter as she blinked back the biting ice and snow. Her once gentle features had hardened into a stoic mask, and her skin had taken on the ruddy hue of one who spent her life in the elements. Gone were the sunny fields and gentle rains of her homeland, the warm laughter around the still winter’s fire. This was her life now; cold, hard, alone.

A narrow cave entrance opened up before her. She stumbled through, pushed onward as much by the wind as her desire to be out of it. The wind’s howl became an eerie moan, and the scent of musty decay filled her nostrils, a burial crypt if she had ever smelled one. At one time, she would scarcely venture near such places, but she had since learned to be less choosy in her lodgings. A crypt was as good as an inn as far as she was concerned. Better, actually, for few others dared to follow.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she spied the remains of a burned out fire and a small pile of sticks next to it. She thanked Yah and blessed the previous travelers as she struck the flint and breathed the spark to life. She massaged her fingers over the growing flame, grateful for the pinpricks spreading to their tips. The light threw harsh shadows over the space, revealing the crypts she knew were there as well as the mummified corpses inhabiting them. How they stayed so perfectly preserved in these conditions, she did not know. Perhaps at this elevation, they never thawed. Or perhaps they were not really dead.

Samara unsheathed her dagger and lit the end of a stick as a torch. She stood, cautiously, and made her way to the shadows. Bones of various descriptions littered the floor, along with a few of the barely clothed mummies, burned or stabbed through. Draugrs, she now remembered from her reading, the reanimated corpses of dragon-worshipping Nords. In the darkest shadow, only a few yards from the fire, she found the remains of a large family of travelers; several children, a man and wife, and three elders. The scene was too terrible to describe, but one all too familiar. At least this family had killed a fair number of their attackers before their demise, still tangled in combat with them as they died, perhaps in vengeance of their children or to prevent the same happening to others. Or perhaps it was merely the instinct of all dying beings, to hang onto life even as it slips from the lungs.

Farther back in the shadows, she heard the faintest of footsteps. She swung her torch in their direction, hoping to appear fearless to whatever watched her. From out of the gloom stared two unnaturally blue eyes. The cave seemed to grow colder, and the dagger felt less substantial in her hand. The owner of the eyes let out a low growl, not quite human but not quite beast, and stepped into the light. His leathery skin clung to his bony frame, and looked as if it might tear as he raised his broken blade. Samara sidestepped, feeling cold metal graze her arm, and swung her torch, catching him squarely in the left eye. The draugr howled, clutching at his burning face. Samara slashed his throat, stale blood arcing off the blade, and stabbed his sunken chest, losing her grip on the handle as he fell.

Exhausted, Samara retrieved her dagger from the unbeating heart, and wiped the blade on the draugr’s tattered clothes. She checked the shadows beyond, finding only a few burial urns and a caved-in tunnel with a mummified hand reaching from the rubble. She spat on it, not thinking of the soul but of the evil spirit the body once contained.

The other mummies hadn’t stirred, but she stabbed each and every one in the chest as a precaution before returning to the murdered family. Their clothing was like hers, mismatched and showing signs of wear. The mother’s boots were moderately better than hers, as were the elder woman’s gloves. She switched hers out and left them for the next traveler. There weren’t many who chose to head this direction, but she had the feeling there would be more. They had few other possessions; steel blades rusting from the draugrs’ blood, a few coins, healing herbs, a bit of dried meat, a rotten apple and a Book of Yah.

She tucked the book in her satchel, having lost her own copy to a raging current, and brought the meat back to the fire, taking slow bites as she watched the flames. If she had not lost her bow to the same river, she would have had a more substantial dinner, a leg or two of rabbit or even an entire goat haunch over the fire, but she had learned to make due with very little, far less than she could previously imagine. Her mother would have made a sermon out of that, about how Yah’s daily bread was sometimes merely enough to survive. The last bite eaten, she cleaned her dagger again and placed it in the fire until the metal glowed. She gritted her teeth and drew the blade across the wound on her shoulder, cauterizing it with a hiss. Her mother could have gleaned any number of illustrations from this journey had she been alive to take it.

Samara took out the book again and opened it to the record of family births, deaths, and marriages, running her fingers across the delicate script. They were a mix of Nords and Bretons, not running to Skyrim but away. The most recent entries were a litany of killings, similar to how her own Book of Yah had been, written in her hand. What shelter they hoped to find in Cyrodiil, she did not know, though they probably would have asked her a similar question. The Thalmor were nearly as omnipresent as the wind. She took a twig and smeared it with ash from the fire, mixing it to an ink-like consistency on the cave’s damp floor.

_ Remaining members slain by draugr, Jerall Mountains. _

_ Found by Samara Florinian, Last Seed, 4E 201. May Yah rest their souls. _


End file.
